The Mavericks and Bulls were among the teams the Rockets spoke to about Dwight Howard in the days leading up to Thursday’s trade deadline, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com, reiterating earlier reports that Houston talked with the Hawks, Celtics, Hornets, Heat and Bucks. The Rockets held out for one “frontline player” and a first-round pick in return, sources told Stein, though it’s not entirely clear whether he means “frontline” as in “frontcourt” or as in “of importance.” GM Daryl Morey provided a hint, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle relays.

“It was going to have to take something significant to make us look at anything and even then we probably wouldn’t have,” Morey said in part.

Morey also said that he believes in the combo of Howard and James Harden and was never close to trading Howard, Feigen notes, but according to Chris Mannix of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports, the Rockets understand that Howard and Harden are simply a poor fit on the court. The Rockets and other teams had considerable differences about what a Howard trade would look like, even though executives around the league believe Howard is a better scorer than his numbers in Houston show, Mannix writes. See more from the Texas Triangle:

The Mavs are always looking for another shooter, president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said, according to Sefko, who indicates in the same piece that the team wouldn’t mind signing a big man, either, as the post-deadline buyout market develops.

Teams offered picks likely to fall in the middle of the first-round to the Mavs for Dwight Powell and Justin Anderson, a source tells Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). Presumably that means each of them would have netted that sort of pick individually, and not the two of them as a package.

Jabari Young of the San Antonio Express-News wouldn’t be surprised to see the Spurs replace former assistant GM Sean Marks with Spurs D-League GM Brian Pauga, also noting that ex-Spurs executive Danny Ferry has been hanging around the team of late (Twitterlinks). Young made his remarks on the evening before the Nets hired Marks as their GM.